They Compare Heights
by Ming Xiong
Summary: When Riddle's diary gets stolen, Harry finds his things strewn across the floor. His school year is difficult. Sequel to Slytherin Green, Marcus/Harry preslash.


Summary: When Riddle's diary gets stolen, Harry finds his things strewn across the floor. Sequel to Slytherin Green, Marcus/Harry preslash.

Disclaimer: Don't own anything!

Author's note: I didn't think I would write more about Marcus and Harry, but this suddenly appeared. I am aware of the problems in the timeline, but currently have no access to the Harry Potter books. As this is situated in Harry's second year, the fic can still be read as just friendship. Please enjoy!

As for the title, I shamelessly stole it – it is the 1930 translation by W.M. Bickerton of Takekurabe by Higuchi Ichiyō. I love that title.

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**They Compare Heights**

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It looks like something exploded on Harry's bed. Neville is standing by the door, pale and stuttering, his left hand gripping the doorpost; Harry has to squeeze by him to enter the dorm and measure the disaster while Ron gapes. Harry's clothes are strewn across the dorm, his rags on display for his dorm mates to see, and his school books have been thrown around carelessly and present bent covers and pages. Worse still, his mattress has been slashed. Harry feels as though he were in a bad movie, except that no school child here should be carrying a knife – and then he remembers that they only need the right _spell_, and he feels even more anxious. Seamus and Dean don't say anything about the mess when they arrive and Tom Riddle's diary has disappeared.

Ron is properly indignant after the incident, and rants and raves about intruders, but Hermione stays quiet, as does Harry. As the most sensible of their group, she probably shares Harry's worries, but how can they do anything? It finally occurs to them that their wands are dangerous – that giving children weapons is just one more proof of the madness of the wizarding world. And a cutting spell can easily be found in the library.

Harry steals some time for himself, then. He is tired of the jeers in the corridors, tired of being ostracised for something he didn't do, and the destruction of his property is just the last straw; so he wanders the more obscure parts of the castle to avoid being seen.

Though he doesn't dare go towards the mostly unexplored dungeons, there is still plenty to discover on the surface. He walks past the used classrooms and offices to see darkened portraits and armours. His steps start echoing, the sunlight is visible in rays through the rising dust; here is the rubble and here the grime no one has bothered cleaning up in the past centuries. Harry likes the little alcoves barely hidden by moulding tapestries, he likes seeing his footprints in the dirt and smelling the sweetish scent of abandoned buildings. Mould and rot and dust and solitude.

At the turn of a corridor, he discovers another set of footsteps leading all the way to a little balcony. Someone is already there, a hulking form he suddenly recognises. Harry suddenly thinks back to the green cap the intruder left hanging on top of a bedpost and shuffles towards Marcus Flint.

He isn't sure what to say or to expect, really. Apart from their very brief interaction the preceding year, they have only seen each other in passing in the Great Hall and during Quidditch games. Perhaps Flint will reject him too, thinking him the Heir of Slytherin? But it is too late to turn back as Flint has already heard him, already pushed away from the ledge he was leaning against.

He doesn't seem hostile. He makes a small movement, as if to call Harry to him, and Harry obeys and approaches, and gets far closer to the older boy than any Gryffindor in his right mind would. Flint has a bemused air on his face, and hesitantly curls his large arm around Harry's shoulders. Harry burrows into his side and soaks up the comfort, and they stay together until dinnertime.

Flint brings him back to the Great Hall and ruffle his hair before pushing him through the door. They don't go in together.

XxX

Harry often goes back to the balcony after that. Flint doesn't hug him again, but they talk a bit from time to time. They don't talk about the school or about their idiotic schoolmates. But Flint allows Harry to call him by his first name and then threatens to hurt him if he ever calls him Marcus in front of anyone else. Harry likes his companionship too much to risk it being strained by their schoolmates and tells him so, and Marcus ruffles his hair again. Then he takes Harry's small calloused hand into his much bigger one and squeezes it briefly.

Far away from his schoolmates' ridicule, Harry is content.

XxX

Harry sits on his broom and hovers above the rest of the team at the following Quidditch game. Madam Hooch asks the team captains to greet each other, and as Harry watches Flint try to break Oliver Wood's knuckles in his handshake, he thinks that Flint's grip would probably be much softer were Harry in Oliver's stead. He remembers big hands and sunrays in the dust.

Harry wears his green cap to the game between Slytherin and Ravenclaw. He's pretty sure he saw Flint smile.


End file.
